Rest In Peace No Way! Snowboards

In the world of snowboarding brands come and brands go. Some make a difference and others are just the status quo. I worked with Andrew [Guddat] and Duane [Bratsch] from pretty early on with their brand. They were young, they had some good and bad ideas, but most of all they understood what it would take to make a small brand stick out from all the cookie cutter crap that resonates in this industry. Working with Andrew has been amazing he reinvented the logo you see on this site, has contributed articles, and continues to work with me daily. It’s a sad state of affairs when a little manufacturer screws over a brand that paid on time. Below you will read their farewell to a little brand that had the odds stacked against it from inception.

We just want to say thank you.

Without the family, friendship, camaraderie, and support you all provided us we never would of made it this far.

In some ways I think we’re sad to watch the brand go out, but we had a absolutely awesome time while we were running it and hopefully you did too. I’d like to think that maybe we changed some minds on how small and big brands can operate; supporting local cultures via shops, how and where companies can manufacture, the level of detail that a brand should put into communicating with riders, and making you think about the type of people you want to buy products from.

No Way! was run well for the most part. The only thing that really was a thorn in our side was the same thing that plague’s most small brands. Distribution and manufactures. Due to our consistently late deliveries from our different manufactures we were never able to hit the ground running during sales season.

Instead of focusing on what held us back though we’re taking steps forward. As of today the NW! family is closing its doors and moving onto new ventures and investing more into the ones we’re already working on.

I have just walked into a new position working for Stinky Socks helping to get U.S. distribution and a team going.

Duane [Bratsch] and myself will continue to work on Villain Motion Pictures together. Joey Odom will still be shredding/filming with us and doing his thing over at Koalition Co. and Niko Nakamura and the rest of the team will continue to film with us.

It doesn’t take a brand to make a family and we plan to continue our good vibes for as long as possible.

Speaking of family I have to say thanks specifically to Eternal Boardshop in Reno and Angry Snowboarder. Two huge influences in helping us since the beginning.

Again thank you all for your support.
If you care to get a hold of us for any reason, just shoot me an email [email protected]

And if you happen to be in the area this June/July come to the 3rd annual NW! patch party in Tahoe to celebrate the past 3 years of work, blood, sweat and tears. It will be a great time

5 Comments

Andrew, I’m sorry to see you go. I loved NoWay’s aesthetic. Manufacturing problems definitely plague every small company, and it is really a huge part of the difference between making it or not making it.

The second difference? Shops that allow the bigger brands to dictate how they spend their own money and when. Most shops carrying the larger brands are basically told they have to have their orders in prior to SIA, which means by the time SIA rolls around there’s little money left for emerging and exciting brands like NoWay and others. It would border on noncompetitive practices if many shops themselves weren’t willing accomplices. Someone has to have the balls to say “You know what? I am YOUR customer, and I’ll order when I am damn well ready.”

Similar to how shops want the manufacturers to support THEM, the shops have to pull their weight in supporting emerging brands, or become middlemen between near-monopolies and the customer. When those parties figure out they can get their stuff without the middleman? The retailer gets left behind, and if they have stocked nothing but majors for years, frankly they deserve the fate.

No one need to visit a shop to find out about the Burton Custom, as an example. The internet does that just fine. What it doesn’t do well is have a lot of first-hand data about newer products. That is where shops come in, and they need to actually get and use new stuff to stay relevant.

If people out there wonder why they don’t see much product difference year to year, it is partly because riders aren’t communicating with shops about what they want; a good word from customers is worth more than thousands of marketing dollars in the climate of fear most shops operate in. In the absence of data, the shops pick the easy thing, the boring thing, the safe thing, and you see the same stuff you saw the year before from the same old companies. What if they heard from their customers they want “brand X” this year? And if the answer was “Oh, sorry, you only carry ‘GlamCo’ ? I guess I’ll find something more unique online. “, then you’ll start seeing a more interesting trip to the shop each fall. Community goes ALL ways, and shops, manus, and customers need to keep up a multi-part dialogue if they hope to survive. We’re all in this together.

Just wondering when they say “manufacturing problems” does that mean poor quality? I was hoping there would be a stock of boards that needs to get sold of. id love to get my hands on one if the quality is ok.

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